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The Ten Thousand Bulb Challenge

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Our Big Guerrilla Gardening Challenge

The Glasgow Guerrilla Gardeners have decided to make Spring 2010 the most colourful ever but we can't do it without flowers. To help us achieve our goal we have decided to launch the Ten Thousand Bulb Challenge. Our primary aims in creating this lens were to raise both funds and awareness of our work, however we hope that you will be inspired to take similar action in your local area wherever you are in the world. If we meet our target I'll publish a lens breaking down exactly how we did it to help people who want to start similar projects in their towns and cities. Find out what the challenge is, who we are, why and how you can help on this lens.

Please bookmark this lens and return often for updates.

*Above picture is of our Townhead site*

Who Are We?

We are a small troop of guerrilla gardeners based in Glasgow, Scotland. We've been working on neglected patches of land around central Glasgow since August of last year. All our work is funded out of our own pockets and occasional donations from supportive members of the public.

In an effort to attract more help and get our city looking fabulous we've launched the Ten Thousand Bulb Challenge.

* Picture on the right is of our Wilson Street site. All bulbs pictured were planted by us*

Guerrilla Gardening Reads

If reading this lens has got you thinking about your own area and how it could be improved by a bit of guerrilla gardening then you might want to do a bit of further reading. I can highly recommed 'On Guerrilla Gardening' by Richard Reynolds as that was the book that took me from sitting around wishing I had a garden to getting off my backside and making use of the local wasteland. It's a great and inspiring read with some beautiful pictures of guerrilla gardens from all over the world.

*Every purchase made via this page will mean a donation to the bulb challenge at no extra cost to you.*

What is the Ten Thousand Bulb Challenge?

With summer slipping by rapidly- yes it really is July not a mass calender based prank- our thoughts have turned towards the coming year. So now that you're all depressed allow us to cheer you up by introducing the Ten Thousand Bulb challenge.

Those of you who've visited our site at Townhead (pictured) will be aware it's a fair old size so in order to get it looking really good for next spring we need bulbs and lots of them. We are aiming to attract sufficient donations in either cash or bulbs to let us blanket our Townhead and Wilson Street sites in thousands of blooms.

Between now and December 31st 2009 we aim to obtain and plant a whopping ten thousand bulbs and will be frenziedly panhandling for the next few months to supplement our own contributions. If you'd like to help out you can either use the paypal button on our blog to make a donation, bring a bag of bulbs along to a dig or contact us to arrange to send bulbs to one of the troops.

If you have a business or website you'd like to promote we'll be happy to write a short post highlighting your donation on our blog and add a link to our sidebar in return. We do get the occasional bit of press interest and our blog attracts a good amount of traffic so it's an excellent way to advertise cheaply whilst helping us out. We are also quite happy for you to publicise your donation and may be open to participating in any susequent publicity as long as we're not asked to tell fibs, dance, dress up or sing.

In the event we exceed our target any excess will be put towards our gardening activities. We've a lot of land to cover and the 10,000 bulb project is only the tip of the iceberg.

Bag Yourself Some Bulbs

eBay can be really great source of bargains for gardeners. I've bought plants, bulbs and seeds at a fraction of the price charged by the big garden centres. The vast majority of sellers on eBay are great but before you buy make sure you check their history and feel free to ask any questions you might have - a reputable seller won't mind this at all and as many of them are keen gardeners you might even pick up a tip or two.

*Any purchase made via this site will mean a donation to the Ten Thousand Bulb Challenge at no additional cost to you.*

What Kind of Bulbs do We Need?

Daffodils-TARGET EXCEEDED

Tulips- TAGET MET

Snakeshead Fritillaries TARGET MET

Snowdrops TARGET MET

Mixed Crocuses TARGET EXCEEDED

500 English Bluebells (native only please)

Grape Hyacinths -TARGET MET

Winter Aconites- TARGET MET

Alluims -TARGET EXCEEDED

900 Native Wood Anenone

We've selected the above for their ability to naturalise, visual impact and beneficial effect on wildlife, apart from tulips who're there to look nice and little else.

Successfully naturalised daffodil fields have been known to last for up to fifty years which means if we meet our target our sites will be in bloom in 2059.

We'll be planting our first donated bulbs up at Townhead on 29th August at 11:30am if anyone fancies joining us with a bag or two of bulbs from the above list.

*Picture of our Wilson Street site*

Watch us on TV

This is a clip of first dig at our Townhead site in August 2008. Since then we have cleared the lower half of the site and planted almost 12,000 bulbs as well as numerous shrubs, plants and flowers.

Helping is as easy as falling off a log. Take any one of the steps outlined below and you've made a valuable and gratefully received contribution. Both our Townhead and Wilson Street sites ooze potential, a little bit of effort and it'll be realised. If everyone who lands on this page does just one of the things listed below, there's every chance we'll meet our target.

Ten Things You Can Do To Show Your Support

1. Bookmark this page and return often for updates. We earn a small royalty for visits to this site. If you're reading this you're already helping.

2. Buy via this site. Everytime you enter the eBay or Amazon sites via our page and make a purchase we will get a percentage at no extra cost to you.

3. Join Squidoo via this page and we'll earn a bonus royalty.

4. Send us your bulbs. Contact clairwil123AThotmailDOTcom for details of where to post your donated bulbs.

5. Link to us from your lens, blog or website.

6. Donate cash via paypal to the above email address.

7. Tweet this page.

8. Tell everyone you know about us and encourage them to help out by undertaking at least one action from this list.

9. Come along to our big bulb planting events in August 2009 (details to be announced nearer the time)

10. If you like this page, give it a good rating to boost it's Squidoo page rank and help us attract more traffic.

*Above picture is of our site on Wilson Street, Glasgow, once again it's all our own plants (except the butterfly bush)*

Countdown to The End of The Ten Thousand Bulb Challenge

The End of The Ten Thousand Bulb Challenge: December 31, 2009

What Your Cash Donations Can Buy

10p buys a single bulb

£1 buys ten bulbs

£10 buys one hundred bulbs

£100 buys one thousand bulbs

£955 buys the full ten thousand

Get The Right Tools

Whilst it is advisable to go for the best quality tools you can afford there is no need to spend a fortune. eBay is a great source of good quality new and second tools often at a fraction of the price available in the shops. For guerrilla gardening all you need to get started is a pair of gardening gloves and a trowel -you're likely to find you'll want to add to this as time goes by but I find these are what I use most often.

*Any purchase made via this site will earn us a small royalty to help towards our appeal at no extra cost to you.*

Our Latest News

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Guerrilla Gardening Blogs

Pushing the boundaries with guerrilla gardening: Photo / Thinkstock You may be surprised to know that every time you do a little verge planting outside your house you are actively indulging in a guerrilla gardening assault. Yes, even though you planted out your daylilies in broad daylight with not a ...
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Carrboro occupiers want guerilla garden instead of CVS: By Chessa DeCain | The Daily Tar Heel Members of Carrboro Commune plan to announce the details of their ?guerilla gardening? protest Wednesday, possibly interrupting a neighborhood meeting that CVS representatives are scheduled to hold.
Guerrilla Gardeners Get Stealth Bond Kit: By Zachary Shahan On January 26, 2012 I wrote about ?Guerrilla Gardening? & ?seed bombs? nearly two years ago on sister site Green Living Ideas. I loved this concept from the second I heard about it. Basically, it combines child-like fun and ...

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Enjoy A Challenge?

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Join Me by Danny Wallace is the tale of his quest to encourage people to join him for at first no real purpose at all -though as the tale progesses he finally establishes a purpose for all those joinees. Yes Man is his tale of what happened when he challenged hiomself to say yes to everything with interesting results.

One Red Paperclip by Kyle MacDonald is the story of how Kyle managed to trade one red paperclip for a house.

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Sula Grigg Jan 11, 2012 @ 12:03 pm | delete

I would love to do this as a parallel to my art project how old is this page i cant see.... dunno if its been

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reasonablerobinson Nov 24, 2010 @ 8:14 am | delete

Fantastic another great guerilla gardening lens. Get those seed bombs going and make a diffrence to your local environment. Liz Christy would be proud!

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Jay_Chua Nov 23, 2010 @ 12:13 pm | delete

Thanks for sharing.

I have added you on my twitter list, and tweet about this.
Hope that can make a difference to our environment and society.

Jay
Publisher, porch swing